Landscaping is named in the statute as an operation integral to construction, and CIS 340 confirms fence and concrete post installation too. Ordinary garden maintenance is a different question, and worth separating on the invoice.
Section 74(2) lists landscaping among the operations integral to, preparatory to, or for rendering complete the construction works — in the same breath as site clearance, earth-moving, excavation, foundations, site restoration and the provision of roadways and access works. So hard landscaping, paving, retaining structures and the groundworks beneath them are construction operations and inside CIS.
CIS 340 additionally confirms fence and concrete post installation as in scope, and land draining too. Works to the land are covered in their own right, which picks up drainage and water features.
Ordinary grounds maintenance — mowing, hedge cutting, seasonal planting on an established garden — is not construction, alteration or repair of a building or structure, and it is not an operation integral to construction works. Landscaping as part of a construction project is expressly in scope. If your business does both, separating them on the invoice is what makes each treatment defensible, and it also stops a maintenance contract dragging a deduction it should not carry.
Plant hire comes out of the payment subject to deduction — diggers, dumpers, rollers, whackers and attachments. So do materials you directly incurred: paving, aggregate, kerb, sleepers, fencing. So do consumable stores, and fuel other than fuel for travelling. Travel and subsistence stay in.
The deduction is charged on the payment less materials you directly incurred, consumable stores, fuel other than fuel for travelling, plant hire, the cost of manufacture or prefabrication, and the VAT you charged. Travel and subsistence stay in. And where the contractor buys the materials and recharges them, you have not directly incurred them, so no reduction is due at all.
If the deduction is costing you cash, gross payment status is the fix rather than a workaround — the turnover test is £30,000 of relevant payments net of VAT and materials for a sole trader, and the compliance test, which since 6 April 2024 includes VAT, is the part that needs preparing for.
Ordinary grounds maintenance on an established garden is not construction, alteration or repair of a building or structure, and is not an operation integral to construction works. Landscaping as part of a construction project is expressly in scope. Where a business does both, the answer depends on what each contract is actually for — which is why they are worth invoicing separately rather than as one monthly figure. Landscaping is expressly listed in section 74(2) among the operations integral to, preparatory to or for rendering complete construction works, so the connection to a construction project is what brings it in.
Yes. CIS 340 confirms fence and concrete post installation as in scope. It sits alongside the other confirmations in that guidance — assembly of prefabricated units on site, asbestos removal, land draining, building alterations to accommodate lifts and hoists, and the provision of labour for construction operations. That list is worth knowing in full, because every item on it is something a business regularly assumes sits outside a construction scheme — and each one carries both a CIS deduction and a reverse charge consequence.
Site works closely connected to constructing a new dwelling can fall within the zero rate, but the boundaries around soft landscaping and ornamental work are the sort of detail worth settling against the specific development rather than assuming. Work on an existing occupied dwelling is standard rated. Zero-rated supplies are outside the reverse charge, so the answer affects more than the rate. Where the work is on an existing garden with no construction project attached, you are outside CIS and charging VAT normally, which is the simplest position of the three.
Materials you bought yourself — slabs, aggregate, kerb, sand and cement — plus plant hire, consumable stores, and fuel other than fuel for travelling. Not travel and subsistence, which stay inside the base. And not materials the contractor bought and recharged to you, because you did not directly incur those. On a typical paving job that is a substantial share of the invoice, so buying materials on your own account rather than the contractor's is worth real cash the same month.
Three months of statements or returns, and a straight account of what is wrong and what it is costing.
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